“Are we alone?” Is it possible that this little speck of a planet we call Earth is home to the only form of life in the universe? Some 10 trillion planets are estimated to orbit the billions of stars in our little corner of the cosmos, the Milky Way Galaxy, with a similar number possible for each of the more than 200 billion galaxies out there. That would make for something like 10² planets. That’s a 1 followed by 24 zeros. An astronomical number to be sure! How likely is it then, that in the 13.8 billion years of the universe’s history, no life has evolved anywhere else? Not very, one would think. So, as physicist Enrico Fermi asked back in 1950: “Where is everybody?”

Fermi suggested that in a galaxy with innumerable stars that are billions of years older than our sun, there surely must be some planets that have, or have had, conditions suitable for the development of intelligent life. Even if these civilizations had no more advanced technology than ours, some signal of their existence should have been spotted. None has, and so we have the “Fermi paradox.” Of course there are claims that not only have we been visited by aliens, we have even interacted with them, apparently not always in an amiable fashion. But there is no convincing evidence of such encounters. A decade after Fermi voiced his “paradox,” astrophysicist Frank Drake formulated an equation that attempted to evaluate the numerous probabilities of the existence of alien life. However, the factors involved are speculative and the equation does no more than “organize our ignorance,” as Drake himself stated.

I’ve long been fascinated by this “ignorance.” I think I was first turned onto the idea of “aliens” back around 1957 with one of the first television shows I remember watching. Rocky Jones, Space Ranger was a kind of space policeman who would blast off from Earth and travel to other heavenly bodies where wicked aliens needed to be taken care of. There was no explanation as to where these worlds were, or how it was that the aliens always spoke English. I think the only concession to science was that Rocky’s spaceship looked like a German V-2 rocket, which was also the prototype for the Redstone rocket that allowed Alan Shepard to become the first American in space in 1961. By that time I was hooked on space travel and was riveted to the TV set as Shepard was launched into his suborbital flight.

Then, in 1965, along came Lost in Space, a television series that actually had smidgens of science. The plot centred around a family that set out from an overpopulated Earth to colonize a planet circling the star Alpha Centauri. At the time the program was produced no planets outside the ones that orbit our sun had been discovered. But the show was actually set in 1997, which is interesting given that the first planet orbiting a sun other than our own was discovered in 1995. More than 300 such “exoplanets” have been discovered since. The show also paid some attention to the huge distances involved in space travel by placing the crew in a state of suspended animation, only to be reanimated when their space ship approached a planet that, according to previously-launched space probes, possessed ideal conditions for human life.

The space ship in the show looked sort of like a flying saucer, likely because of the popularity of stories circulating at the time that an actual flying saucer had landed at Roswell, New Mexico. The television ship was nuclear-powered, there were laser guns for protection, and a pod that could be launched from the main ship modelled on the Apollo Lunar Module. The Pod even had artificial gravity. And there were rocket packs worn on the back that were actually based on hydrogen-peroxide-powered jet packs developed in the 1950s. The aluminized space suits with Velcro fasteners were based on NASA technology, as were the silver Mylar space blankets. There was even space food in the form of protein tablets. But every world visited had an Earthlike atmosphere and Earthlike gravity.

Lost in Space overlapped with the most successful of the TV science-fiction shows, which of course was Star Trek, debuting in 1966. The show was set in the 23rd century, so as to allow for ample time to have passed to develop scientific wonders like phasers, transporters and travel at “warp speed.” The latter was necessary because it allowed for travel faster than the speed of light, which would be needed to travel to the diverse planets visited by Captain Kirk and his crew.

Watching all these shows was great fun. And it still is. But how far are they from reality? Unfortunately very, very far.

That’s because the distance that would have to be travelled to get to a planet outside our solar system is almost unimaginable. Tremendous publicity was given to the discovery of the first planet, Kepler-186f, that may be sort of a cousin to Earth because it may have liquid water. How far is it? About 490 light years away! So when we see Kepler-186f, we are really seeing that planet as it was 490 years ago — since that is how long it took for the light to reach us.

And how far have we travelled in space? We have made it to the moon. That is 1.2 light seconds away! Next possible step is Mars, at a distance of a few light minutes. And as we plan for that trip, we still await signs of life from elsewhere.

It is to the intriguing possibility of some form of life out there that we devote this year’s Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium. Our invited speakers are Jill Tarter, on whose career Jodie Foster’s character in the movie Contact was modelled; Jim Bell, president of the Planetary Society; MIT Professor Sara Seager, who has been called an “astronomical Indiana Jones;” and UFO investigator Joe Nickell.

The first two swing into action at the Centre Mont Royal, 1000 Sherbrooke St. West, starting at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 6; the others follow on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at the same time. No reserved seating. It’s first-come, first-served. Everyone is invited as our experts address the question: “Are we alone?”

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

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